.\" $Id: lat_pipe.8 1.2 00/10/16 17:13:45+02:00 staelin@hpli8.hpli.hpl.hp.com $
.TH LAT_PIPE 8 "$Date: 00/10/16 17:13:45+02:00 $" "(c)1994 Larry McVoy" "LMBENCH"
.SH NAME
lat_pipe \- measure interprocess communication latency through pipes
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B lat_pipe
[
.I "-P <parallelism>"
]
[
.I "-W <warmups>"
]
[
.I "-N <repetitions>"
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B lat_pipe
uses two processes communicating through a Unix pipe to measure interprocess
communication latencies.  The benchmark passes a token back and forth between
the two processes (this sort of benchmark is frequently referred to as a
``hot potato'' benchmark).  No other work is done in the processes.
.SH OUTPUT
The reported time is in microseconds per round trip and includes the total
time, i.e., the context switching overhead is includeded.
Output format is like so
.sp
.ft CB
Pipe latency: 491 microseconds
.ft
.SH ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Funding for the development of
this tool was provided by Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
lmbench(8).
.SH "AUTHOR"
Carl Staelin and Larry McVoy
.PP
Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are always welcome.
